


Day 22 - Poisoned

by fanfictiongreenirises



Series: Whumptober 2020 [22]
Category: DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Good Older Sibling Dick Grayson, Poisoning, Tim Drake & Damian Wayne Bonding, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27147974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanfictiongreenirises/pseuds/fanfictiongreenirises
Summary: A series of really unfortunate events lead to accidental poisoning.No 22. DO THESE TACOS TASTE FUNNY TO YOU?Poisoned| Drugged | Withdrawal
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne
Series: Whumptober 2020 [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947217
Comments: 41
Kudos: 226





	Day 22 - Poisoned

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: poisoning, blink and miss possible permanent damage, vomiting blood
> 
> Disclaimer: don't own dc
> 
> Shoutout to the batfam discord server for their help with this <3333

THIS FANFICTION IS HOSTED ON **ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN** , WHERE YOU CAN READ IT FOR **FREE**. IF YOU’RE READING THIS ON A DIFFERENT WEBSITE, IT WAS POSTED THERE **WITHOUT** THE AUTHOR’S CONSENT.

Dick stood in the doorway, watching Tim and Damian fiddle around with a whole table of beakers. Bruce was apparently doing something in the Cave and had kicked the rest of them out, so Tim had brought all his chemistry tools outside and into the main living room.

Dick suspected that half of it was out of spite, and the other was just sheer determination to finish whatever it was that was happening in the beakers.

“Looks neat, guys,” Dick said, walking inside.

Damian glanced up at him. His eyes looked giant through the safety goggles he had on, and Tim had made him wear gloves, a lab coat, and steel-toed shoes. There had been a minor fight involved in the process of this convincing, which Dick had heard through Cass.

“Thanks,” Tim said distractedly. “We’re sharing information.”

“Sharing information?” Dick didn’t know if he liked the sound of that, not when the information was something that would bring these two together so harmoniously. “For a case?”

Damian shook his head, eyes still focused on the red and blue liquids in front of them. “Timothy half-arsedly learned things while he was looking for Father,” he said, “and I happen to have had regular lessons on toxicology.”

Dick blinked, and then his eyes widened. “You guys’re making _poisons_ in the _living room_ where we _eat?_ ”

Damian made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “We’re being careful,” he said. “There won’t be any traces left after we finish.”

“And we put up poison signs everywhere,” Tim chimed in, looking at Dick for the first time.

Dick ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t want to get in the middle of his two younger brothers bonding – that was the _last_ thing he wanted. Dick had tried to get them to at least come to a sort of truce for so many years that the fact that it’d just happened at some point along the way was still surprising.

But there was the fact that these were poisonous chemicals that they were dealing with, with no adult supervision – Tim didn’t count – and in an unsafe setting. There was no way this would end well.

“Uh,” he began. “Couldn’t you take this… I dunno, somewhere safer?”

“Somewhere safer,” Tim repeated, tilting his head a little. “Like where, exactly? Bruce kicked us out of the Cave.” From the sound of his voice, he was still annoyed about that.

“There’s the shed outside,” Dick offered. “Jay and Alfred just cleared out all the old junk. The garage, even.” Why were they even _here_ , in the living room of all places?

Damian was glancing between him and Tim, and Dick _really_ hadn’t wanted this, but safety was more important than some hurt feelings.

“Richard,” he said slowly, after a long glance towards Tim. “We’re taking all the safety measure we normally would.”

Tim practically cut him off, getting to his feet. “It’s fine, Damian,” he said. “What’s moving another time.” It was clear that there was something else going on with Tim, but Dick knew that bringing it up in front of anyone – especially Damian – would get him no answers.

“You want help?” he asked instead.

Tim shook his head. “No, we got it,” he said.

That was when the phone rang. Dick went to answer it, hanging up after a passive aggressive conversation with a telemarketer. When he returned, all traces of Tim and Damian were gone.

All barring a juice box that Dick recognised as one of Damian’s. He picked it up with a fond huff of breath. Seeing it lying here brought back memories of the penthouse. He’d even grown somewhat fond of them himself.

This one was apparently mango flavoured. Dick mentally shrugged and poked his nail into the little foil-covered hole. That’d been the one thing he’d done to make himself feel less juvenile – less like he was stealing a kid’s snacks.

Dick tilted his head back and poured a mouthful down into his mouth, about to head through the kitchen to Bruce’s office and get those papers he’d come here for.

That was when the _burning began._ Dick gagged and coughed as something boiling hot and acidic burned its way down his throat. He couldn’t breathe, his body doing its best to expel its contents. Dick bent over double, falling to his knees as he threw up bloody strings of bile.

His stomach was cramping like crazy, a feeling deep in his bowels like he was about to explode from both ends. He could feel tears leaving his eyes as his body burned from the inside out, a numbness spreading from his mouth in a way that was not pleasant. The tips of his fingers and toes felt like he was touching hot coal, and his whole body was shaking as it tried to deal with whatever the fuck he’d just ingested.

Dick had to get help. There were panic buttons in every room of the Manor, built in when Bruce had rebuilt it after the earthquake. The one in the kitchen was located beneath the benchtop.

Dick lifted his head, trying not to scream, because there was no way that would help matters. He’d been on his hands and knees as he’d been throwing up what felt like melted bits of his oesophagus. Now, he pulled himself forward at a crawl, trying to tell himself that everything he was currently feeling was in his head.

Dick’s fingers brushed the panic button when he began convulsing. He didn’t know if he’d hit it, because suddenly, his body had hit the ground and was jerking uncontrollably.

That was the last thing he was aware of.

* * *

Dick came to very slowly. His eyelids felt crusty and glued shut, and when he went to open them, they took time to respond to him. He felt like something heavy was pressing him down into whatever he was lying on, limbs heavy and unmovable.

That was fine – he didn’t really want to move his body, anyway.

Dick realised two things at once: his mouth was open, and there was an oxygen mask over his face. There was something down his throat, too, but his mind was much too gone to care about it at the moment. And there was something warm on his wrist.

He turned his head to the side, forcing his eyes to blink. The Cave came in, hazy at first and then clearer the more Dick blinked. Dick’s head was foggy in a way that suggested _strong_ medication – he must’ve really done something to his body if he were on it.

Damian was curled up in a chair, fast asleep. His hood was drawn up over his face, so Dick couldn’t see his expression. Something in his chest clenched at the thought of the young boy waiting at Dick’s sickbed. He wanted to run his hands through Damian’s soft curls, wanted to reassure the frown lines he knew were probably deeply embedded into his forehead in his sleep.

But Damian’s hands weren’t the one that was on Dick’s wrist. Dick turned his head back to the other side, wincing as the tube down his throat made itself known at the movement.

Another hoodie clad figure was seated on a chair, hand on Dick’s pulse. Tim was fast asleep, his hand barely touching Dick’s wrist at this point, only a finger that was still somewhat in place. But Dick knew that, if he were to move his hand away, Tim would be conscious in an instant.

A shadow covered the light from the far end of the Cave. Dick glanced up to see Bruce, face scruffy and eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep.

“Hey,” Bruce whispered. His hand came to take Dick’s free one. “How do you feel?” When Dick went to open his mouth, he quickly shook his head and added, “Sign it for me.”

 _Numb_ , Dick said. _Floaty maybe_.

Bruce’s face didn’t change, but he patted Dick’s hand a little, and didn’t look like he had any inclination to release it.

 _What happened?_ Dick asked.

Bruce grimaced. “The… uh, the juice box you drank from was apparently a science experiment of theirs.”

Dick huffed a laugh of disbelief, and then immediately tightened his grip on Bruce’s hand as his throat warned him of its current condition.

“It’s been touch and go for a while,” Bruce said, still speaking very quietly. “We thought you weren’t going to make it when we found you.”

_Throat?_

Bruce grimaced. “The burns are rather extensive,” he said. “I don’t know how much of your vocal cords you’ll recover. The inside of your mouth might be fine after some time - most of your tastebuds will probably recover. After a _lot_ of time. And it barely reached your stomach. It’s mostly just your oesophagus that’s worrying.”

Part of Dick wished he hadn’t asked. He didn’t want to do anything right now except sink into the pillow beneath his head and give in to the drugs. But he had one final question.

 _Tim and Damian?_ he asked, signing the first letters of their names.

Bruce sighed. “They’re… honestly, they’re punishing themselves more than anything I could say. This is the first time they've really slept,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “They were apparently on their way back in to get the juice box when they got the alarm and found you. If it hadn’t been for that, then—”

He looked away, that that was when Dick noticed just how much he’d let the scruff on his face grow. Salt and pepper was sprinkled over Bruce’s lower face, and it made him look so much more tired than he already did.

 _Wasn’t their fault_ , Dick stressed.

Bruce shook his head, as though to rid it of some thought or another. “It isn’t,” he agreed. “I shouldn’t have told them to leave the Cave. I…”

Dick couldn’t say anything to that but squeeze his hand with the little strength he currently had.

“Sleep,” Bruce said finally, and Dick barely needed the prompting to hurtle into unconsciousness.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!!


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